A two-out continuous-run blank-stacking system allows this Honda supplier to eliminate work-in-process blank inventory. An added bonus: One of the system's new belt conveyors tilts up and out of the way so the press can run progressive dies. While colossal transfer presses dominate the landscape inside the 136,000-sq.-ft. plant of automotive Tier One supplier Newman Technology Inc., it's a modest 400-ton blanking press that keeps the pressroom at the Mansfield, OH, facility hitting on all cylinders. When the plant souped-up the blanking press with a new two-out blank-stacking system a few years ago, it drove throughput to highway speeds. In addition, the new blanking system's simplistic design slashed changeover time by better than 60 percent. As a result, the plant's pressroom now stores zero inhouse-produced blanks as work in process.
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